Linda Fried

Getting Our Health Priorities in Order: Prevention, Research, and Treatment

Ed Greissing, Katie Couric, Mark Alles, Tom Beauregard, Linda Fried, Eric Lefkofsky, Jim Robinson

Addressing a critical misalignment where preventive social factors drive 70% of health outcomes despite comprising only 5% of spending, industry leaders from UnitedHealth, Celgene, and Tempus are pivoting toward virtual prevention and genomic data integration. Innovations such as Project Not Me, early-stage biological interception, and million-fold reductions in sequencing costs aim to overcome regulatory friction and treat diseases before they manifest, as demonstrated by UnitedHealth's prenatal care model that reduced preterm births by 30%. The panel concludes that immediate progress requires interoperable data platforms to replace siloed systems, enabling the digital infrastructure necessary to close the nine-year life expectancy gap driven by socioeconomic disparities.